


Advent XVI

by Tammany



Series: Assorted Advent Stories, Christmas 2014, All-sorts, some connected. [17]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Advent, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Morning, Dreams vs. Reality, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 01:39:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2754839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And the day arrives--is Mycroft ready? </p><p>We dream big, but we love in a thousand miniature treasures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent XVI

“Wake up, sleepy head. Christmas morning.”

Mycroft kept his eyes closed, and burrowed just a bit deeper into the covers. “Sleeping.”

He could practically hear Lestrade’s bewilderment. “You bloody set an alarm, Mike. You were going to get up and race downstairs and turn on the lights in the Great Hall and start the music, and make sure there was hot food ready from the kitchens for breakfast, and then come up and…”

“I know.” He pulled further in, tugging the edge of the blanket up like a cowl to cover his head, leaving only his eyes and the tip of his nose showing. “Sleeping.”

The light from outside was pale and thin, reminding him of skim milk. The world had the strange, empty silence of holidays and precipitation—snow and rain seemed to muffle the noise of the world, snow more than anything. A snowy holiday morning was quiet in a way nothing else ever could be.

Lestrade lay down again, slipping under the blankets. He didn’t wrap his arms around Mycroft, and Mycroft was grateful. Even love didn’t really make him at ease with all the touching sometimes. Definitely not this morning. He heard his lover shift and rustle, settling into the blankets, positioning his pillow. He could tell the man lay on his side, faced away—he shifted just close enough that his bum brushed Mycroft’s, and he carefully set the soles of his feet against Mycroft’s, heel to heel and toe to toe—a cautious, limited contact he’d long since determined Mycroft would tolerate even when he was feeling claustrophobic.

“Is something wrong?”

“I…” Mycroft sighed. “It’s downhill from here. Christmas, I mean. Oh—one last bit, maybe, though Em’s really a year or two too young to be turning inside out with anticipation. But, really, from here on in it’s the magic that falls just a bit flat, and the presents that are nice—but not perfect and certainly not important the way they were when we were little. It’s a big meal that leaves you counting calories and reckoning hours on the treadmill, and people beginning to plan their escape back into real life in their heads. Christmas is better anticipated than realized.”

Lestrade mumbled something that wasn’t agreement or disagreement—more dismay at Mycroft’s gloom. “Aw, come on. All the work you put in…”

“Yes. All the work I put in. And Em will get overtired and cry, and Sherlock will bug out as soon as he plausibly can, and Janine will be left stuck and embarrassed in a house full of strangers, and John and Mary will be uncomfortable with Sherlock missing. And the presents will be—presents. What are presents, really, to adults, Greg? None of us here is starving, or struggling, and if we were, the things we need would not be found in stockings or boxes under a tree. They’d be fuel bills paid and lights staying on and car insurance and new tires and shoes for the children.” He sighed. “I bail my soul out of purgatory with gifts to charities…but…”

Lestrade sighed. “All right. I won’t argue. Hell, if nothing else maybe the one thing we can really give people for Christmas is a bit of a lie-in and a good meal later. But—do you mind if _I_ go downstairs and turn on the lights and get us a pot of tea and a basket of scones and some tangerines out of our stockings? To eat here in bed? Together?”

Mycroft managed a smile. “No, of course I don’t mind. I’ll even shower and change.”

“Change into jammies,” Lestrade said, firmly. “If you’re going to take a mental health holiday, take it properly. Shower and then back in fresh jim-jams, and I’ll do the same then run down and get us brekkers.” Then he laughed, softly. “Shower together, love?”

Mycroft mumbled, but found a smile sneaking in regardless. He pushed his feet back against Lestrades. “All right. But nothing all that exciting. I’m…feeling quieter than that.”

“I kind of figured,” Lestrade said, then rolled over and slipped his arms around Mycroft after all, hugging him comfortingly. “I’ll go on in. Join me when you’re ready.”

Mycroft nodded and pressed his back against his lover, wrapping the sense of being cared for around him like a blanket. He smiled when Lestrade kissed the nape of his neck, then rolled out of bed, tucking the blankets back close. Seconds later he managed to roll himself out of bed, and pad across the thick Victorian floral rug, all pink and sage green, to join Lestrade in the shower in the big old-fashioned claw-footed bathtub, surrounded by the billowing white curtain on its high rod.

“C’mere, you,” Lestrade said, and pulled him close. His skin was already warm from the hot water, and his hands soapy. He rubbed suds up Mycroft’s back, massaging shoulders tight in spite of a night’s sleep, and nuzzled his hair, mouthing the spangled dew from the shower spray delicately.

Mycroft sighed, and soaked in the heat—almost scalding water, warm lover. He closed his eyes, grabbed the soap, and lathered his hands, reaching blindly to find the soap dish before beginning to work bubbles over Lestrade’s shoulders in return affection. The simmering dread wasn’t gone—but it was offset by a very real joy.

They soaped, rinsed, stepped out and dried each other off. They took turns at the mirror, ducking in and out past each other and pointing out bits each had missed. They brushed their teeth and emptied their bladders and overall made sure they were fit and clean and ready for the day. Then both slipped into new flannel pajamas, and Lestrade shoed Mycroft into bed, and put on his robe. He kissed Mycroft right in the deep harbor where the hair was creeping back from his forehead, and left, humming softly. Mycroft’s mind filled in the words.

_I saw three ships come sailing in_

_On Christmas day, on Christmas day,_

_I saw three ships come sailing in_

_On Christmas day in the morning…_

Mycroft cuddled in, plumping pillows around his back as he sat up, making himself pay attention to the little things—how warm his skin and muscles still were from the shower. The lingering memory of Lestrade’s lips on his head. The sound of his humming. He smilled—Lestrade could be very much like Father, he sometimes thought. Perhaps not as bright as Mummy and Sherlock and Mycroft, but perceptive in a way they often missed, even when they were “observing, not just seeing.” He caught nuances the way a bloodhound caught scent, as though making the intangible tangible.

_The Virgin Mary and Christ were there_

_On Christmas day, on Christmas day_

_The Virgin Mary and Christ were there_

_On Christmas day in the morning…_

He found his reading glasses. He located his reader, and forced himself to pick something light and comforting to read. So many books he had, he thought—and far too many of them facts and figures and cold hypotheses and statistics. But he had his treasures…he did.

A linguist can’t help but love language used beautifully.

He found what he wanted. _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_. He needed the grounded atheistic mysticism of Joyce this morning. He skimmed along, scrolling quickly through the pages, letting memory fill in faster than brute reading could, until he came at last to the girl on the strand…

 _Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call._ _To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on!_

He smiled and closed his eyes, reminding himself—it was worth it. Simple, forever humble humanity was worth it. Not because people were anything but goldfish, but because goldfish were beautiful, in all their clueless, broken imperfection. If he didn’t believe that, it was time to change what he did—because if the man standing point against all the world didn’t love humanity with all his body and soul and conviction, then he might turn aside. He might stop tallying the price and questioning the “collateral damages.”

_I saw three ships come sailing in_

_On Christmas day, on Christmas day…_

Lestrade wasn’t just humming, now, but singing in a cheerful, rough light baritone that verged on tenor—higher than Sherlock’s, if lower than Mycroft’s. He had a voice for rock music, Mycroft thought, holding in the amusement at the backhanded truth of it. No opera singer his beloved!

“Scones,” Lestrade said. “Simple, British scones the Americans haven’t got at.”

He had a tray the size of a small nation, covered with a basket and jams and butter and a little jar of clotted cream and a big brown nursery teapot with a wisp of steam floating up from the spout. He nested it all in the middle of the bed, and sat on the edge of his side, snatching up two hot scones from under a clean tea towel, and juggled them gingerly, while he split them open and dumped in clotted cream and shining currant jam. He handed one to Mycroft, with a smile. “Shall I pour out?”

“No,” Mycroft said, taking the scone with a smile. “I’ll play mother.” He took a wary bite of the hot scone, sucking air past his teeth to cool it down. “Mmmm, good.”

“Look, fried ham, too, from last night’s ham,” Lestrade said. “And hard cooked eggs.”

Mycroft poured them out big mugs of black, strong orange spice tea. He sugared his, and smiled as he took a deep sip. “You’re good for me,” he said.

“I know I am,” Lestrade said with a mischievous grin. “But it goes the other way, too. You’re good for me.”

They ate in silence together, munching and sighing and swallowing hot tea.

“It’s quiet out there,” Mycroft said. “I thought I heard some life out there while you were gone—but apparently they all rose, took a piss, and fell back into bed.”

“Yeah, well. Holiday,” Lestrade said. He collected their plates and piled them on the tray. He poured out more tea. He cleared all the clutter but the mugs aside. Then he fished in his pocket, and pulled out a small hand-wrapped present. He put it on the blankets between himself and Mycroft. “Happy Christmas,” he said, quite obviously trying to look casual.

Mycroft took the package and turned it over in his hand. He put the tea mug on the night stand, and touched the wrapping paper.

Lestrade had clearly wrapped it himself—and had used paper saved from previous Christmases, apparently not having new on hand at the time he’d prepared this, or because he had loved the print: peppermint striped hearts and Christmas trees hung with little hearts.

“Only thing left from the marriage I really like,” he said, shyly, when he saw Mycroft studying it. “I always loved that paper.”

Mycroft nodded. It was clear his lover was not a skilled and brilliant wrapper of boxes: there were no artful signs of Japanese wrapping skill, or even basic Western mitered-corner neatness. The folds were bulky, the flaps thick and sloppy, and there was rather a lot of sellotape involved. He slipped a fingernail under one bit, and carefully peeled it back, fingers tracing the object contained.

It wasn’t very big. Large for a suit pocket, but small enough to fit in a coat pocket or brief case. It was clearly a notebook of some sort. When he’d finished unwrapping it he frowned slightly.

Old—an old, worn day book, the sort busy men maintain to keep track of schedules, sort out basic contact information, and track ongoing projects. Judging by a thousand little clues and one big one, it was the past-year’s day book: the year-date being somewhat of a give-away. He looked at Lestrade, who looked back with a worried, uncertain smile, but who said, “See if you can solve it, Mike. Figure out why I wanted to give it to you? Do a Sherlock for me.”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft huffed. “I assure you, if Sherlock could guess, I can.” He opened it up and began to leaf through. Page after page went by, and his fingers stroked notations.

“Fri. 11:30, Lunch, Holmes. Thai. Wear tie, for God’s sake!!!”

“Mike out of town. Remember to text.”

“Tell Sherlock to tell Mike he doesn’t need to come see me in hospital—it’s just a polyp.”

“Lunch, Saturday. Mike. No tie needed."

“Dinner. Holmes. WTF am I doing?”

“Do not forget this date. Ever.” That one was marked with a tiny heart, as though Lestrade had been unable to resist, but shy to risk it being seen…

He smiled as date after date and event after event swept past, all noted in Lestrade’s vigorous but casual hand. The date canceled after they’d fought—scratched out multiple times in several different pens. The date he’d missed because he’d been in hospital for an anthrax scare, marked with circle after circle as though Lestrade had been unable to express his worry any other way. Then a long, lovely lead-in to this Christmas—the dates marked for prep, for travel, for actual events, all the way up to this morning.

He said, “A year of love.”

Lestrade nodded, then said, softly, “Anticipation’s worth jack, Mike. I know—the real thing’s quieter and quirkier and nowhere near as big and showy as anticipation says it’s going to be. But I wouldn’t trade this year for all the anticipation in the world. You just—have to observe, right? See the little stuff.”

Mycroft nodded, and swallowed. “Point taken.” He smiled up at his lover. “I assume we should get dressed and go down and prep? Lights? Tree? Breakfast? Music?”

“No need,” Lestrade said with a mischievous grin. “Jam-jams are fine—and prep’s already in hand.” He rose and loped to the door, opening it and shouting loudly, “It’s Christmas, everyone!”

There was laughter from below, and music began, drifting up from the Great Hall to the right of the stairs.

“They’re waiting for you, love,” Lestrade said…and Mycroft rose, and put on his robe, and they both went down, as the stereo played on and on.

_And all the souls on Earth shall sing_

_On Christmas day, on Christmas day;_

_And all the souls on Earth shall sing_

_On Christmas day in the morning…._


End file.
